Eddie the banished and I, Milo the tagging-along, had made contact with the others shortly after the sun rose completely. They were making their way to our rock, and so Eddie and I stretched out. His outfit had mostly dried, his hair only frizzy now, rather than completely soaked down. I had become clodden in dirt, my blond highlights now a dingy brown, and having given up on preserving my nice clothes. I should have opted for a different type of attire on this adventure. It took longer than expected for the team to show up, but when they did I felt more excited to see them than I thought I would be. Eddie stumbled from our rocky perch to pick on Dustin, whose relief flooded his face immediately. They shared and hug, Eddie admitting he thought he was done for that time. I felt my heart dip a bit. Steve, too, seemed a little more excited to see me than I expected. I think seeing someone you'd grown up around again in this sort of situation- it felt nice.
"So you were hiding out," Steve smiled warmly. "Kinda thought you died after all that. Glad you didn't, Moore."
"Nope, I'm here, now, on the run," I smiled.
I gave him a hug as greeting, but to my surprise, Eddie coughed behind me, and we broke apart.
"Hey, man," Eddie greeted Steve- but I could detect something behind his tone. Something completely awkward.
Steve paused, looking between the two of us, as if waiting for Eddie to say anything more. He didn't though, just gave a pinched smile. Steve shrugged. "Uh, we brought you some more booze if you want to grab it,"
Steve gave me one more smile, which I returned, before retreating to converse with the others. I furrowed my brow at a very innocently feigning Eddie, recalling what he'd said to me not so long ago. "Are you really jealous right now, Eddie?"
He made an exasperatedly goofy face, about to deny, deny, deny.
"Because yeah, it is ridiculous." I warned playfully.
He said nothing, slowly backing up. Part of me bubbled in excitement at him being jealous over me- something I hadn't experienced in a while- but another part was annoyed. Hopefully this wouldn't be an ongoing thing. In any case, I was just proud of my callback to when he'd mentioned Chrissy- I maintain that I was rightfully jealous at the time, and using his words against him felt good. Maybe not for him, but I wasn't going to worry about that right now.
I rolled my eyes and stalked back to the group. He followed. Eddie had maintained a rather calm composure for quite a while, but it was beginning to crack. I realized, maybe, he'd been holding it up for me- being Vecna'd and all. But now, with everyone here, he was showing more and more signs of breakdown. I had detected quite a bit of wobble in his voice when he finally managed to contact the group through walkie-talkie, admitting he was very much "not okay." I'd neglected to look beyond my own experience that night- while I was fighting for my life, he was simultaneously fighting for his own. He was on the run and was nearly caught- saving me and himself in the process. It sucked, being so in my head sometimes. I felt like I completely let him down.
"We tried contacting you when we got to shore, but the walkie was busted, man. Drenched. So, uh," He chugged something from a flask, which I hoped was water- then offered it to me. Now I really hoped it was water. "I did the thing I do now. I ran."
His smile was forced, as if he were letting us in on an elaborate joke. His demeanor in front of his friends right now was entirely different from his demeanor in front of me. When we spoke, we were in our own little world. When they spoke, he was self inflicting and sarcastic. I couldn't help but furrow my eyebrows at him, as if asking, "really?" What else could he have done? What, really, could he have done? Part of me understood where he was coming from, feeling like I'd completely run from my problems the second I touched down in California. But as much as I'd come to detest that decision, I also have come to realize it necessary. I hoped he wouldn't dwell on this too much.
Nancy asked what time the attack was, and I crossed my legs in my seated position, glancing to Eddie as he yanked off his watch. I really was just along for the ride. I wondered if any of my accessories had been lost in the adventure, then paled at the realization. I manically shuffled around the inner pockets of my blazer, feeling nothing. I tried not to become too emotional at the thought, but in the last pocket, he was there. I released a soft sigh, pressing my little Scooby-Doo plush to my chest firmly. No one paid me any heed, except, I noticed, Eddie, who had peeked over to what I was doing. He gave a small, incredulous smile.
"You still keep that thing around?"
I was about to respond when I heard my name uttered in the chaotic conversation which wasn't making sense to my scrambled head.
"That surge of energy was Vecna attacking Milo." Nancy confirmed.
"You knew about that?" I raised my eyebrows. I guess it wasn't difficult to discern, but she discerned it relatively quickly. I'd never really thought of Nancy Wheeler as much more than a teacher's pet.
Nancy seemed concerned. "Milo, they think you're in on it. Jason's telling everyone you completed some satanic ritual, that Eddie and you are some sort of demonic power couple-"
"Kind of a cool title," Eddie pointed out. "Not entirely wrong,"
"Wait, you two are back together?" Steve asked with raised eyebrows. Robin mirrored his expression.
"Is this really what you guys are grilling them on right now?" Max snapped, disbelief clouding her expression. "What I want to know is how the Vecna escape went down. Is there anything else we could learn?"
"Actually," I mused, the hair on the back of my neck rising uncomfortably at having to dig through those memories. I'd been staying calm mainly by completely pushing them down, a rather successful tactic I'd mastered recently. "I had a few questions for you."
Max nodded, idly fumbling with the volume on her walkman.
"When I was having my um- visions?" I asked, looking for approval. She nodded for me to continue. "So when I had my last vision, I actually encountered what I'm pretty sure was- was my mom."
Max straightened up really seriously, catching my every word. Lucas, however, didn't seem overly interested.
"Isn't that his whole thing? Use memories to disorient and upset you?" He shrugged.
"Yeah, but, like, this was different." I tried, straining to find a way to explain it verbally.
Eddie nodded supportively. "Actually, it was real weird, man. I tried to flip the cassette to her favorite song, but it just stuck- it kept playing this one Fleetwood Mac song that was kind of a downer to be completely honest and-"
I cut him off, rolling my eyes. "It was my mom's favorite song. Inside my vision, I was hiding from her. And as soon as it played- I can't even explain it. She got bright, she gained control of herself, she- she was beautiful. She was like a fantasy version of herself, when she was alive. She thanked me, for something, and as quickly as the vision had started, it just cut off. It was different, because most others-"
"-were like a nightmare." Max finished, absorbing my every word.
"Yeah." I agreed, cheeks wet with tears. "But this one, it felt like she was there, she was in control, she took over. And so, my last vision, last night, Eddie flipped on the music- and I don't know how because we were being run down by Jason, Rowan and the police- and it started out like that. A nightmare. I knew what you guys had told me to do, nothing more, and I felt a pull to follow the music to the art room, in Hawkins High."
"Ms. Benson's room." Robin nodded. I gave a weak smile, appreciating that she had also gotten into art at some point.
"But I didn't make it." I shook my head. "He caught me, right outside of it, he pinned me against the wall, I could feel my body stiffen at the mental pull he had over me, he rose his hand to hover just above my brain, and then- pure light. Pure, beaming, blinding light. I ran to the exit, following just the sound of the stereo, I slipped back into my body, and I fell limply onto the boat, Eddie scrambling in and miraculously starting it up in one go after several failed tries earlier in the night. We made it to shore, I've felt free of his gaze- something I haven't felt since I was in California- and I'm fine. Nothing's happened again."
There was silence as everyone exchanged glances. Max finally spoke up, having maintained eye contact the entire time.
"Do you think it was her?"
I bit my lip. I'd considered the possibility. "I don't know what else it could have been."
"So her mom's ghost or something saved her from Vecna?" Steve asked, shaking his head at the ridiculous notion.
"I don't know," I sighed.
"No, no- I mean, it's not that far off-" Robin argued, moving a bit forward. "The flayed- last summer- they were absorbed by the mind flayer, and Vecna absorbs his victims. Like, deeper than just killing them, right? So if Vecna controls the upside down-"
"Vecna absorbed Milo's mom." Nancy concluded, nodding at Robin.
"Do you think," Max mumbled, "that all of Vecna's victims are attached to him in that way?"
"I really don't know, you all know so much more about all this than I do," I butt in, "But the only thing I'm pretty sure of- my mom? I set her free. Eddie-" I gave him a grateful smile. "-set her free. And I don't know how I survived Vecna's last assault, but I would put money on my mother being involved."
They all took in the information together, mumbling different things to piece it all together. Max remained quiet, Lucas gently placing a hand on her shoulder. She seemed to be connecting something, in her head.
"Well, back to the original topic, we're one step closer. We know how Vecna attacks." Robin summarized.
"And where he attacks from," Lucas added.
"And what happens to his victims." Max said darkly. "So now we just need to sneak into his lair in the Upside Down and drive a stake through his heart."
"If he has a heart," Robin adds.
"What stake? Is he like a vamp? Is he a vampire?" Steve asked dumbly.
"It was a metaphor," Max responded, annoyed.
"A bullet should work, right?" Eddie added, crouched like a little frog.
"I say we chop his head off," Lucas continues.
"All of the above, but we can't do any of that until we find a way to get into the Upside Down." Nancy reminds, bringing us all back to reality.
It's then that I notice Dustin pacing around in the background, having not contributed any meaningful conversation in the past few conversations. He almost reminded me of myself in that way. Because god, I could not keep up with the pace of this group. I don't know how anyone ever understood what was going on. Actually, that wasn't true. Nancy was the reason anyone understood what was going on. She was single-handedly sorting through each of our disconnected scraps of dialogue, meanwhile somehow scrapping together meaning from it.
"Hey, uh, Henderson's not, uh cursed, is he?" Eddie asked aloud, craning to notice the same activity I had been.
"Cursed? No, he's fine. Mental? Absolutely." Steve crossed his arms.
It was then that Dustin insisted to Steve that Skull Rock was North, in which Steve became pissed off, and argued with the Freshman. Steve became so annoyed, in fact, that he began displaying fits of frustration, gripping his hair in annoyance like an overworked father may in response to a child begging for sweets. I recalled Robin picking on him for having such young kids as friends, and giggled at the fact he was not only friends with Dustin, but literally fighting over semantics. That was, until Dustin gave completely convincing evidence regarding magnetics or something, Steve insisted Dustin was still wrong, ignoring the point he was making, causing me to be even more amused. The group concluded that there was something called a "gate," and that was the reason for the compass disturbance. Eddie and I met each other's eyes, both having next to no experience with the actual Upside Down-just the creatures it unleashed upon us. Dustin finally concluded we'd need to check it, because if we had a gate, we could get to Vecna, and if we could get to Vecna, we could free Max from this curse. At this, I piped up.
"Wait, you're still cursed?" I asked softly.
She merely held up her earphones in response, the low hum of the song on repeat.
"How do you know?" I continued, trying to gently nudge.
She looked at the others unsurely, then down to her shoes. "It's like he's just out of my vision, watching, in the back of my head. I think he's afraid of the music, but I can still feel him there."
"I-I don't feel that." I admit. "Why you, why not me?"
Max sighed in frustration. "I don't know. Maybe he needs to move on faster now, maybe he's holding a grudge on me. Or... maybe your mom is watching over you."
I frown, feeling awful, as if I'd flaunted being free of the curse. I couldn't imagine it hovering over me like that. But why wasn't it? Did Vecna really just need to move quicker, find an easier subject? Or did my mom really hold a link in all of this? The thought, like everything else in my life as of late, made me tear up. Whenever I was in Hawkins, it seemed I cried as often as a baby. Was my mom really there, guarding me? Had I really managed to free her from his binds?
"I wonder if I-" Max started weakly, sounding completely unsure of what she was about to say. "If I could have freed Billy, too."
We all made grim eye contact, and I would bet we were wondering the same thing. Did she want to attempt that? It was risky and experimental. Dustin took it upon himself to break the silence, wandering off.
"Where you going? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" Steve snapped, calling after his adopted child. "Eddie and Milo are still wanted men- erm- and, uh, women- we can't just go hiking in the woods."
"This little steel capsule," Dustin waved around the compass, "might be the key to saving Max, Milo and Eddie. What say you, Eddie the banished?"
Eddie, who I hadn't noticed had grown quieter and smaller throughout the whole conversation, had now practically curled into a ball in thought. "I say you're asking me to follow you into Mordor, which, if I'm totally straight with you? I think is a really bad idea."
Steve nodded approvingly.
"But uh, the Shire is burning..." He contemplated for only a second longer before pressing up to stand into a firm stance, psyched up from his own little pep talk. "So Mordor it is."
"What is Mordor?" Steve asked, seemingly completely incredulous by the conversation. Though Eddie was already gathering things from our spot, Steve added, "Get your stuff, dude, come on."
I snorted at Steve.
He turned and pointed at me, one hand on his hip. "And you- quit laughing at me over there in your judgey corner. We've gotta go, get on with it,"
"Ok, father Steve." I lowered my voice in jest, bowing repeatedly. I then squirmed out of the length of his reach, in case I were to accrue any repercussions. He muttered insults behind me I was wandering too far away to hear.
I caught up with Eddie, shouldering a bit of the load of what he was carrying. He glanced between Steve and I, but I pretended not to notice. Instead, I shifted all my items to one hand, and nudged his with the other. He glanced at it, then at the surrounding group, then at Steve, and totally unrelated to showing off in front of Steve, smiled largely, and took my hand in his own. I smiled fondly at the feeling, little butterflies collecting in my throat.
--
If I can be totally honest, my love for Steve runs deeper with every word the man says, and I have to give a little bit of it in here. I will definitely be reading Steve fics after I finish this one. What a lovely, lovely man. But anyway, please remember to leave votes and comments! It helps spread my story and lets me know you enjoy my writing. Have a lovely day!
-Donny